THE LIVING DEAD: an acrostic-- winner

THE LIVING DEAD: an acrostic—award winner

[A cemetery is a temple of living souls]



Take care, don’t trample this grass;
Have softness in your step.
Ere waking a sleeping soul,
Draw nigh, listen to me.

Ensconced here in silent graves
Are yesterday’s soldiers.
Dead is not the word for them.
Almost alive are they.

Read up this fading tombstone,
Engraved in golden words,
Showing me to all the world
Enlisting all my deeds.


No, I’m not a lifeless stone
Sleeping soul though am I.
I am not without feelings
Though they are not expressed.

I wish as you walk through this
Vast green cemetery,
Every inch of ground you may
Tread with utter respect.

Of course, it is very true
That I look like a stone.
However, deep inside me,
Echoes of heart resound.

Let you be reminded that
In that heart is a hope:
Visitors to this place may
Introspect and know that--

“None is immortal and in
God is the salvation”.



• Written in 7-6-7-6 format
* Awarded first prize in the contest "Invalid Item"  where an acrostic had to be written around the prompt—“The dead are sensitive to the living”.


M C Gupta
8 May 2005